


Carl's Got a Crush

by the_rat_wins



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bisexual Carl Gallagher, CARL AND MICKEY DO NOT HAVE ANY SEX, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, So please put down any pitchforks and torches you are readying, The Underage tag is for Carl's solo sexual thoughts/activities, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rat_wins/pseuds/the_rat_wins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Ian's gay, but at least he isn't totally fucked in the head, like Carl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carl's Got a Crush

**Author's Note:**

> As of 05.06, I suddenly have a lot of retroactive feelings about Carl Gallagher's possible hero worship of Mickey Milkovich.
> 
> This takes us through the end of 04.12. Depending on how the rest of the season shakes out, I may have more feelings along these lines. Be warned.

"Is Ian _gay_?"

Carl knows what gay means. OK, so, he doesn't know exactly what it means. He knows it's when dudes get it on, but only with dudes. All dudes and no chicks. And the dudes are kind of girly.

Ian can't be gay, because Ian is basically Superman, Captain America, and GI Joe all at the same time. Ian's in ROTC—he has weapons, real weapons, and a uniform, and a bunch of cool books with rules for how to kill people. And he's smart, too. Not as smart as Lip, but only 'cause no one is as smart as Lip. If Ian is Captain America, then Lip is Iron Man, building robots and making shit fly or whatever. But Ian's still pretty smart.

So, Ian can't be gay. "Ian" and "gay" refuse to be together in the same place in Carl's brain. It's dumb. Ian doesn't dress like girl. Ian doesn't talk really high. Ian doesn't wear makeup or sequins.

But Jimmy looks shifty, like he told a secret he wasn't supposed to and now he's lying to cover it up. (Carl knows all about that. Like the time he accidentally told Fiona about the ninja stars he stole from that nerd store in the Loop. She didn't make him take them back, though.)

So, maybe Ian's gay. Maybe gay means something else besides sequins and makeup and getting it on with other dudes.

Carl's going to have to get some more information.

 

Frank is actually kind of helpful, but gets distracted halfway through explaining what gay dudes do with their wieners. Besides licking them, which is definitely weird, but on the other hand, the idea of a girl licking someone's wiener is pretty cool, in a gross kind of way, and dude-mouths aren't all that different from girl-mouths, so maybe it's not _so_ weird. Carl needs to think about it some more before he makes up his mind.

He doesn't want to totally tip his hand with Ian, so when they're upstairs later, he asks Mandy about it, and then casually looks at Ian while she answers.

(Mandy used to be with Ian, but now she's with Lip, and Ian doesn't seem to care, so maybe Ian didn't like Mandy that much? Carl never walked in on Mandy sitting on top of Ian and moaning, which has happened to him with Mandy and Lip, like, three times this summer already. So, that's kind of weird. Maybe.)

Anyway, when he asks Mandy what gay guys do with their wieners, she starts off with the licking stuff, which he _already knew, thanks,_ and then she mentions something about _buttholes_ , which, _what_? What is someone going to do with someone else's butthole, exactly? But he's watching Ian, and Ian doesn't seem worried or embarrassed. But he also doesn't look grossed out or anything.

So, Ian is probably gay.

(Lip answers his question better than Frank or Mandy, which makes sense. Lip knows everything about everything.)

 

Carl's still kind of thinking about Ian and butts (and plunging? Did Lip mean, like, dick plunging? An actual plunger would be _way_ too big. So he must have meant with dicks) the next day when Ian and some older dude burst through the door carrying Mickey Milkovich.

Who just got _shot_.

 

Mickey Milkovich. Carl used to think there was no one cooler than his older brothers, until he met Mickey Milkovich. A part of him had always been aware of Mickey, mostly as a threat to be avoided. Lots of people didn't like the Gallaghers, but _no one_ liked the Milkoviches. And Mickey was the scariest of all of them. (Except Terry.)

So it was weird when Carl came home from school one day last winter and saw Mickey sitting at the kitchen table, still wearing his coat, and looking uncomfortable. Usually Carl would have ducked out of Mickey's way and kept moving. But him sitting all alone in the middle of the Gallagher kitchen was different. This was Carl's turf, and Mickey was the interloper. So he dropped his backpack next to the table, grabbed a can of soda from the fridge, and sat down across from Mickey.

Mickey's hands were twisted awkwardly on the table in front of him, and Carl stared at Mickey's knuckles, at the FUCK U-UP tattooed on them in faded black ink. Holy shit, that was cool. He wondered if it had hurt. He wondered if Mickey had a gun on him, like, right now. Sure, Ian knew how to shoot—he was one of the best sharpshooters in ROTC—but he never brought guns home with him. Everyone knew all the Milkoviches owed guns.

He kept staring at Mickey's hands. Mickey had probably killed someone. Maybe with a gun, but maybe with just his hands. Ian knew how to do that, too. It was in one of the combat guides from the army.

"Hey," said Mickey, and Carl jumped a little. He'd been so busy wondering if Mickey had killed anyone with his hands, he'd kind of forgotten Mickey was actually sitting there looking back at him. "Your eyes stuck or something?"

Carl shook his head, and glanced up at Mickey. His eyes were big and blue, but his face was mean. He looked kind of empty and angry, like he wanted to eat something but he hated everything in the fridge.

It was a scary look. So Carl stared at his soda can instead, turning it around in his hands.

Ian came clattering down the stairs, zipping up his backpack and trying to put his coat on at the same time.

"Fucking finally," Mickey muttered. "What were you doing, jerking off up there?" Ian rolled his eyes, and punched Mickey's shoulder. Mickey knocked his arm away, scowling.

"Hey, Carl," Ian said. "Good day at school?"

"It was OK. I didn't get suspended for putting that kid in the locker yesterday."

"Nice! You gotta quit putting kids in their lockers, though, OK? It's more trouble than it's worth."

"How the fuck would you know?" Mickey said. "You ever put a kid in a locker? It's pretty fucking fun, man."

Carl grinned, and Ian rolled his eyes again. "Oh my god, Mickey, don't encourage him. C'mon, let's go. Carl, I'll be back for dinner. Start your math homework. Ask Lip if you need help, and I'll help you with your spelling stuff later. OK?"

"Whatever," Carl muttered, staring down at his soda again. Why was Ian being so embarrassing right now?

Mickey probably never had to do his math homework. If someone asked him how to spell _inconvenience_ , he probably just shot them.

"Later, kid," Mickey said as they were walking out the door, and Carl looked up with surprise.

"Bye," he said.

 

So, yeah, Ian and Lip are cool. But Mickey is the coolest. Mickey is action-hero, movie-star cool.

And now he's leaning against their kitchen counter, swearing at Ian and Jimmy's dad, with blood all over the back of his jeans, and bullets in his ass. Holy _shit_.

Carl stands and stares, open-mouthed, as Ian and the other Milkovich lift Mickey up onto the counter and push his jeans and underwear down. Mickey bellows some more, and Carl watches a trickle of blood run down the back of his butt. He's seen his brothers' butts a million times, and boys in the locker room during gym or whatever. But this is different. This is like a butt in a war movie or something. But with real blood.

Also, Mickey's butt looks better than most butts, even covered in blood and whatever that yellow stuff is that Jimmy's dad is using to clean the bullet holes (actual bullet holes!). It's kind of round and firm, like a girl's butt in a music video or something. Pale, though. Mickey's pale all over, like a vampire.

It's probably kind of weird that he's thinking about Mickey's butt, but, like, it's right there. And there's all that blood. Carl is not 100 percent in control of his own brain right now. Jimmy's dad takes out some metal thing, like little barbecue tongs, and starts actually digging inside one of the bullet holes, poking around. Mickey's basically yelling nonstop now, and Ian's gripping his sweaty shoulder, looking scared, but instead of smacking Ian's hand away, Mickey reaches up and grabs his wrist.

Carl can't watch any more, because he's getting hard. Harder than he was that first time, when they talked about Marie Antoinette's head getting cut off in history class. This is, like, the hardest he's been, ever. That's fucked up. More fucked up than gay dudes and their plungers, probably. So he tears his eyes away, and goes and grabs a plastic bat, so he can start a duel with Liam and his toy sword.

Maybe Ian's gay, but at least he isn't totally fucked in the head, like Carl.

 

When they fight Cousin Patrick for the house, Fiona's pretty pissed about the rat-poison sandwich, but he bets Mickey would have appreciated it.

 

Mickey doesn't come around the house again for a long time. After Ian leaves, Carl sometimes sees him under the El tracks, or outside the Kash and Grab. The angry, empty look is on his face all the time now. Lip said something about him getting married to a hooker, which is pretty cool, but Carl wonders if it bugs Mickey that his wife sleeps with other dudes all the time. On the other hand, she's probably really good at sex, since she gets so much practice.

He wonders if Mickey misses Ian like Carl does.

 

"He was wearing a sparkly shirt," Debbie says. "I think he had on eyeliner. And he kept _talking_." They're sitting on the couch, watching TV, but Debbie's staring intently at nothing, like if she stares hard enough, Ian's going to suddenly appear and explain himself. "When they kicked us out, he didn't even look at us."

"Are you sure it was Ian?" Carl asks. "Maybe it was someone pretending to be him." It doesn't sound like Ian. None of that sounds like Ian at all.

Debbie hits his shoulder. It kind of hurts. "That's stupid, why would someone do that?" she says. "It was him, he recognized us. Ask Lip if you don't believe me."

"I believe you. It's just weird."

"It was weird," Debbie says. She's worried. Debbie worries a lot, sometimes about stupid stuff. But Carl can feel a little worm in the bottom of his stomach, and it won't stop wiggling. _Something's wrong with Ian._

 

Mickey walks back into the Gallagher kitchen like he lives there, and asks to see Ian. Doesn't he know Ian is gone?

But he's not.

At first, seeing Ian sitting on his bed, it's like he was _never_ gone. Like they all just imagined it, and he's actually been upstairs this whole time.

But when Carl looks closer, he can see that Ian's different. For one thing, he's pale. Even paler than Mickey. All his freckles are gone, like someone dunked him in a big vat of bleach and sucked all the color off him, except those weird little black shadows around his eyes, like a girl whose makeup got wiped off.

He smells different too, like someone else's soap. But he hugs like Ian, so maybe he's OK after all.

The worm in the bottom of Carl's stomach disagrees. And to be honest, Mickey doesn't look all that happy, either. But Lip seems to think everything is OK, because he's herding them all downstairs. All except Mickey, who's glaring after them on their way out the door.

What do Ian and Mickey have to talk about that they can't say in front of Debbie and Carl? Maybe Ian has a better explanation to give Mickey for leaving than "relationship issues." (What relationship? Ian hasn't dated anyone since Mandy. Is he talking about a _guy_?)

Carl waits till Debbie and Lip are on the stairs, then he runs silently back to the door, and crouches down with his ear against it.

For a second, there's nothing.

Then Mickey, so soft Carl can barely hear him. So soft it doesn't even sound like Mickey at all.

"I'll do it."

"Do what?" Ian's voice is cold. Are they fighting? About what? Ian's only been back for two minutes.

Mickey lets out a breath. "Don't make me say it, asswipe."

"Suck my dick." Whoa. Ian really _is_ pissed at him. "Whenever I want."

_What._

_The._

_Fuck._

There's silence behind the door, and it matches the roaring white noise in Carl's head. Ian just told Mickey Milkovich to suck his dick. Like, actually suck his dick, as in a blow job. Whenever he wants. Like Mickey's a hooker or something.

His brother is going to get beaten to death in his own bedroom by Mickey Milkovich.

Carl's ready to bust in the second he hears Mickey take a swing, but it's been a few seconds and nothing. Maybe Mickey's so shocked, he can't even move. That's how Carl feels, anyway.

There's a soft _thunk_ , way too quiet for a punch, and then a belt buckle clinking. Is Mickey going to hit Ian with his belt? Carl holds his breath.

Silence again.

Carl moves a little to the right, just enough to get his eye against the crack between the door and the doorframe, and then he freezes.

Mickey's down on his knees between Ian's legs. His head is moving up and down, and his hands are somewhere in front of him. Ian's head is tipped back, his eyes are closed, and he has a huge, stupid smile on his face. One of his hands is fisted up in the sheets, and the other is on Mickey's shoulder, gripping him, the same way he did when Mickey was on their kitchen counter, screaming and getting bullets pulled out of him.

But Mickey's not screaming now. As Carl watches, he lifts his head up, takes his mouth off Ian ( _"Your dick's in my dad's mouth,"_ Carl can hear Jimmy saying in his head) and moans. Like a whore. Like his wife would. _(Holy shit, Mickey is cheating on his wife with Ian, holy shit, Mickey is gay for Ian.)_

Ian laughs and pushes Mickey's head back down. Carl scrambles backward, away from the door, away from his brother getting a blowjob from the toughest boy in the Back of the Yards.

 

The next morning, Carl's kind of scared to open his eyes and go downstairs. He scared that Ian will be that cold, bleached person he was yesterday. He's scared that Mickey will be at the table and that his face will be empty, and that somehow he'll be able to look at Carl and just _know_. Know that he saw them. Know about that time he jerked off thinking about Mickey's hands choking someone out. (He wishes that was the weirdest thing he'd ever thought about while jerking off, but honestly, it's not even close. Carl's head is pretty messed up about sex sometimes.)

Whatever. He has to go to school sometime.

When he climbs down from the bunk bed, he finds Mickey curled up with some blankets on the floor. His face is empty, but only because he's sleeping.

Actually, he kind of looks like he's smiling.

 

Mickey basically moves in after that, but it's cool. Him and Ian don't crawl all over each other like Mandy and Lip used to, and they don't scream at each other all the time like Fiona and Jimmy. They're not popping pills and having sex on the kitchen table and stealing all the money like Monica and Frank, either.

They mostly just give each other shit. They rough-house sometimes, but it's more like what Lip and Ian used to do than any guy-girl fighting that Carl's ever seen. They talk a lot too, random stuff, like which one of Mickey's brothers is on trial this week, or whether Ian needs to get a new winter coat ("Gallagher, you've been wearing that fucking thing since we met. I can see your goddamn wrists sticking out of it.")

If he couldn't hear Mickey sucking Ian off sometimes after they think everyone is asleep, or Mickey moaning into a pillow on all fours while Ian does something with his tongue and his fingers, Carl would think they were just two dudes hanging out a lot.

He kind of likes that idea. Having a friend he can get into trouble with during the day and then sleep with at night. Which is why he knows Bonnie is pretty much perfect. He actually thinks even Mickey would be impressed by the stuff she does. She steals a _car_ to keep his mind off Frank. She's so cool.

(And it's cool that she just wants to cuddle. Considering some of the fucked-up shit that still pops into his head sometimes, he's not sure he should be having sex with another human being yet, someone he could hurt on accident. He's definitely got some stuff to figure out first.)

It sucks when she leaves. He misses her hair, and the way she smelled, and what her hands looked like around a gun. He misses kissing her.

He hangs on to the necklace, just in case she comes back someday. Ian came back to Mickey from the army, and Mickey's come back to Ian from juvie, like, twice already. So it's not like he's crazy to hope. He doesn't tell anyone, though. Doesn't want them to think that he's lame or anything.

 

A few nights before Bonnie leaves for good, Carl gets up to piss in the middle of the night, and finds Ian and Mickey cleaning up in the bathroom. They look like they've stuck their faces into a meat grinder. Ian has an Ace bandage wrapped around his ribs, and he's examining Mickey's bloody mouth.

"Nah, I think he just loosened it up a little," Ian's saying when Carl walks in. "Don't see a chip or anything."

"What the hell happened to you?" Carl mutters, rubbing his eyes.

"Mickey came the fuck out, is what happened," Ian says. "To Terry. In the middle of the Alibi. Fucking trashed the place."

"Whoa." Carl's surprised neither of them got shot up. Terry Milkovich is the scariest motherfucker he knows.

"What, you got a problem with that?" Mickey's glaring as hard as he can with his bruised-up face. It's still pretty intimidating, honestly.

"No way," says Carl. "Like we didn't all know, anyway. It's not like you guys are quiet."

Mickey stares at him, his blue eyes wide with surprise.

Ian starts laughing, then cuts off with a groan of pain. Mickey blinks, then turns back to Ian.

"All right, all right, let's get cleaned up and go grab your stuff, OK?"

"You guys leaving?" Carl asks.

"Going to my place," Mickey says. "Looks like you're running a goddamn orphanage downstairs."

"What about your dad?"

"Back in prison, where he fucking belongs," Ian says.

"Cool."

But Ian and Mickey aren't even looking at him anymore. Ian is staring at Mickey with a dumb, goopy expression on his face, and after a second, he reaches up and brushes his thumb against Mickey's cheek, right over one of the dried smears of blood.

And instead of ducking the touch or knocking Ian's hand away, Mickey just sits there and takes it, staring back with his eyes all wide and shocked again. They stay frozen like that for a second, Ian touching Mickey's face gently, until Ian finally remembers that Carl is standing there staring at them, and drops his hand, smiling a little.

"Kid, go use the downstairs bathroom, OK?" Mickey says, still gazing at Ian.

"Whatever," Carl mutters, and clumps away. Maybe if he wakes Bonnie up by accident when he goes back to bed, she'll want to make out until they fall back asleep.

 

When she goes, it's kind of like she takes all the good stuff with her. No more car, no more guns, no more making out with her until his lips are chapped and feel funny. Things are just boring.

Then Mickey comes banging on the door, and everything gets so much worse.

Ian looks just like Monica, lying there in bed, all pale and dead-looking. Like someone dropped him back in that vat of bleach and just left him there until he stopped breathing. Carl can feel the worm in his stomach gnawing like crazy. _Something's wrong with Ian, something's wrong with Ian, something's wrong . . ._

Mickey is freaking out, and that's just about the scariest thing he's ever seen. Fiona couldn't fix Monica. Neither could Lip. Or Ian or Debbie, or him. But somehow he thought, for some dumb reason, that Mickey would know what to do for Ian.

Right now, he looks like he's going to start crying.

Debbie says he does cry when Fiona can't get Ian out of bed, either.

Carl's glad he doesn't see that.

 

The whiskey Frank gives him burns going down, but it's the warmest thing he's felt all day.


End file.
